We had our long overdue family visit to Los Angeles (August 27-31) and San Diego ( Sept 1-4) for seeing around. While at Los Angeles, we stay at Rancho Palos Verdes estate and we rented a Airbnb home at San Diego.

Rancho Palos Verdes, which is located about 9 miles west of LA airport. We very well experienced weekend LA rush hour traffic to the apartment and took about 45 mins to drive.

Rancho Palos Verdes

Rancho Palos Verdes (meaning Green Sticks Ranch in Spanish) is a beautiful upscale hill estate neighboring other cities like Palos Verdes Hills, Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates. It’s known for its dramatic views of the Pacific Ocean, Santa Catalina Island, and Los Angeles city. It’s also reportedly the one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in the United States in terms of household income and property prices.

It has a beautiful walk/cycling path along the Rolling Hills Estate, well-kept streets and housing complexes (both private and public). Surprisingly, the streets have no streetlight.

Its local market complexes are located down the hill, comprised of rather small one/two storied buildings with red tile roof. Visited local shops (Goodwill, Indian sweatband Groceries). Had a 3.5 miles down the hill walk along the shopping complexes, which was really nice.

Palos Verdes Estates Shoreline Preserve is a rocky beach and bluff top park between Lunada Bay and Bluff Cove that is owned and maintained by the city of Palos Verdes Estates. The grass park follows the uneven bluff edge along Paseo Del Mar. A path called the Blufftop Trail meanders through this park.

Evening sunset viewfrom the Palos Verdes shoreline estate is really beautiful.

Malibu

Malibu is reportedly a beach city in the Santa Monica region of Los Angeles, spread over 24 miles strip of Malibu coast. Malibu coast has many popular private and state beaches along the 21 miles of scenic coastal beauty.

It’s also the home of the Pepperdine University, a private Christian research university, is also located overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Malibu Hindu Temple, built in South Indian style, is also located in the city of Calabasas near Malibu. 

Visited Malibu coastline about 1.5 hrs drive and visited a South Indian Hindu temple. On the way we viewed beautiful beaches and hill side housing and other scenic natural beauties.

San Diego

The drive to San Diego (home of University of California and Scripps research institute), is about 2hrs drive from Palos Verdes, was a scenic desert dry route.

The City of San Diego is a little greener border city to Mexico. When we arrived it was above 80 with above 60% dew point. It was very tropical hot weather.

Carlsbad State Beach

On the way to San Diego, we stop by at a roadside Carlsbad State Beach, near Carlsbad coastal city, San Diego (CA).

This beautiful beach is popular for swimming, surfing, fishing and scuba diving.

For our 3-day Airbnb trip, we rented a small 2-bedroom Pacific Beach Deluxe House, which had all the basic essentials.

On our first day, we visited Birch Aquarium at Scripps and Ja Jolla cave. On the second day, we visited San Diego-Coronado bridge, Coronado city, and Torrey Pines state beach.

Birch aquarium at Scripps, located at the University of California, San Diego. campus, is the public outreach center for Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It’s hilltop location and the Tide-pool plaza provides a scenic view of the Pacific Ocean as well as the view of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography campus.

The aquarium has many exhibits including hall of fishes, seahorses and smallest blue penguins.

La Jolla Cove, and its website describes it as a place which is loved both by locals as wells visitors from around the world. Its known for “great, safe place for kids, a great area for picnics and kite flying, start of the Coastal Walk to La Jolla Shores, famous for sea lions that have made the Cove home” and its scenic shoreline. It provides great photographic views for the sea creatures and shoreline view from a distance.

This provides a secluded cove that is great for swimmers and sunbathers, located is right by the La Jolla Village.

The San Diego Coronado bridge connects San Diego Bay to Coronado city (CA) and is part of state route 75. Wikipedia describes the 11,179-foot-long (2.1 mi) five lane-bridge ascends from Coronado at a 4.67 percent grade before curving 80 degrees toward San Diego; supported by 27 concrete girders, the longest ever made at the time of construction. 

It’s night time view is astonishingly beautiful (see below).

The bridge was featured as the second longest and the third-largest orthogonal box in the country – the box is the center part of the bridge, between piers 18 and 21 over the main shipping channel.

San Diego Bay

San Diego Bay (12 miles long and 1-3 miles) is the California’s third largest protected natural resources, across the city of Coronado city. It’s the home of the major United States naval base facilities and only shipyard capable of building and repairing large vessels.

Coronado, which mean “the crown city” in Spanish, is the resort city across the San Diego bay. Beside the San Diego-Coronado bridge, it’s connected to the mainland by Silver strand, a scenic drive.

Torrey Pines State Beach is a scenic public beach located north of La Jolla, a local favorite for surfers, swimmers and beach walkers. It’s located adjacent to Torrey Pines State Reserve, a picturesque landscape plateau overlooking the Torrey beach.

On our final day, we just had family times with cooking and taking evening walk around the blocks, which is amazingly beautiful.

On Labor day (September 5), we returned back to Minneapolis.